Why did you tell me you love me while I was hurting you?

'Why did you tell me you love me when I was hurting you?'

You asked. 

And I realised, 

I had been waiting for the question, for a long time.

'Which time?' 

I asked. 

Because I have been rehearsing my answers, for longer than I realised. 

It is funny how that works.

Sometimes a yearning, buried so deep, feels like a needle you forget at the bottom of your purse. 

It lays there like an unknown threat. 

And when it inevitably pricks you as you rummage for tampons, you realise just how long it has been since you resolved to take it out. 

'All of them.' 

You responded. 

And as I opened my mouth to speak, all the answers I had prepared like meticulously-rendered case-sheets, flew away in the wind. 

And I said the only words I had left,

'Because I love you.' 

It's funny how that works. 

So often we profess love because it's a habit built into our lexicon; we say it before we go to bed, we say it before we hang up the phone, we say when you kiss me awake in the mornings, like clockwork, without thought or motivation, it comes out of our mouths. 

But there are other times. 

The times we say it because of something that happened or something we felt. 

And those are harder to explain. 

I tell you that I love you when you hurt me but each time it's a little bit different. 

That day when I said it while you were fucking me, I did it to draw strength. 

You had told me I couldn't cry, and I didn't, but the ball inside my chest threatened to explode, taunting me with the surplus of emotions I couldn't control. 

Somedays I take all of your pain because I love it. 

Somedays I do it because true bliss lies on the other side of sanity. 

Somedays I do it because you command me to it, and often, that is enough. 

But that day, it wasn't. 

That day I did it because I love you. 

I got through it, because I love you. 

Unlike the time when I said it while you were crushing me under your boot and smearing the blood pouring out of my face onto the dirt on the lips. 

That time I said it because it felt like the most pathetic thing I could say. 

You were being so cruel to me. 

In tough, strident tones you were telling me how disappointing and useless I am to you. 

And how easy it would be to discard me.  

I could have said I was sorry or I could have begged to be better, but nothing feels more heart-wrenching than expressing love to a guillotine. 

That time I said I loved you because I wanted you to see how weak I can be. 

It's so easy to show strength. 

And so gratifying to revel in weakness. 

Last night, it was neither. 

As you choked me and I failed each time to quell my panic as I came up for air, I wanted to tell you how much I need your violence. 

And there was no better way to do it. 

Than to use the few seconds you allotted to my breathing, to tell you that I love you. 

I said it because I wanted to show you how much I would try for you. 

If I could I would erase every learnt fear and eradicate every evolutionary response just for your amusement. 

I will always fail at holding my breath forever, but I will beg you to punish me for continuing to be human. 

I will transcend every rational response to please you, I will tell you I love you instead of breathing, even as you squeeze the breath out of me. 

I wish I had said all of that. 

But maybe it doesn't matter. 

Maybe what I said is the truth underneath all of these explanations. 

When you hurt me I tell you I love you, 

because I do.